Wake to dreaming
by secretlywritingfanfic
Summary: He needs the nightmares in a way that he can't (won't) give up – like smoking, or running to gunfire; remembering danger in the same way one looks back at family Christmases.


Picking up the pen for challenge 18 at .com: _**a first time for everything**_.

As always, let's state the obvious then get to the show:  
>What I own: <em>nothing<em>  
><span>What BBC, Moftiss, ACD and people with very expensive lawyers own:<span> _everything  
><em>Languages I know:_ English, Emoji_

* * *

><p>He lays in bed beside her and dreams.<p>

It always begins in a dry desert village.  
>There is the snapping report of distant guns that will reach him in just a few more minutes. John firms his mouth, perching the L85A2 high on his chest, finger just behind the trigger. Before the ruined street before him vanishes into bullet haze he will duck low and run to a far wall jump down into its green, sunlit garden.<br>Tinny shouts bubble through the headset in his helmet. His men are dying and John has to get away.  
><em>"SHERLOCK!"<em>  
>It is his own voice brought back in harsh, lost echoes. Overhead the Afghan sun is a pinpoint against the grey London sky. At the heart of its blaze is a familiar shadow that reaches down and speaks in hissing static.<br>_"It's all a trick. Just a magic trick."_  
>John's trigger hand lifts to brush Sherlock's fingertips. Then, because this is a dream, John reaches up and grips Sherlock's palm. The skin is dry and cold but the hold is firm. John's rifle slides on its strap to his hip and the good doctor begins to climb the high wall of St Barts. Sherlock pulls him up into the hot white sunlight and when John breaches the roof edge he is gathered up in the tangible scent of wool and starlight that follows the detective in John's dreams.<p>

Mary rolls onto her stomach and hooks an arm over his chest.  
>In her first nights in his bed she woke to comfort John as he sweated and feared and cried in his sleep. She learned that mornings after this were always terrible. He was cross; he was short; he would sharply cut off her soft chatter over toast. He needs the nightmares in a way that he can't (won't) give up – like smoking, or running to gunfire; remembering danger in the same way one looks back at family Christmases.<br>She slips back into deeper sleep and leaves him to it, hand against his heart as it thunders in the dark.

_"Just one more miracle, Sherlock, for me."_  
>He cannot see Sherlock's face, only feel hands as they move to his shoulders. He feels the light because Sherlock is the sun high above him. John's hands reach up, cup the familiar jawline. He bathes in the rumble of the detective's voice.<br>_"Stay right where you are."_  
>Dream and waking bleed together in a hard, brilliant flash. John is squeezing a handgun's trigger as his shoulder tears apart. He is screaming even as his mouth is covered by cold, lush lips. He strains and gasps, rising into the fire of a hot sun that is deep and black and looks so much like his bedroom that when he realizes he is sitting up and awake he still sees the after-image against muted wallpaper.<br>There is a growing blush of dawn in the window. He can't go back to sleep.

Alone, sweat beading and chilling his hairline, John claws against his shirt and grips the place where Sherlock's hand had been. He squeezes the flesh, creates an echo of the dream touch, thumb skimming the knotted scar beneath. Mary reaches out, rubs his arm and makes soft, calming coos that fade as she drifts under again.

Tomorrow –today – he'll make it up to her. He will take her for lunch and surprise her with flowers. They'll hold hands and he'll walk her to the graveyard and the polished black headstone in it. She's never seen Sherlock's grave. Never asked, but he knows she'd go there for him.  
>He thinks, rubbing at his shoulder absently, if Mary is there it may not hurt quite so much. If she goes with him and the pain is lessened, he'll take her to dinner and ask her to marry him.<p>

It will be a day of firsts. It must be.


End file.
